


Ensembles

by blueraccoon



Category: NCIS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-23
Updated: 2006-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueraccoon/pseuds/blueraccoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't just a slightly-obsessive hobby.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ensembles

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the [Geometry](http://blueraccoon.livejournal.com/tag/geometry) universe and won't make a whole lot of sense if you're unfamiliar with that particular storyline. This takes place after [Trajectory](http://blueraccoon.livejournal.com/tag/trajectory).

I see the world in terms of tone, timbre, pitch; notes and chords. I always have, even when I was five and trying to explain to my mother that the beat of the windshield wipers in our beat-up Chevy was wrong, that it didn't match the music on the radio, and that the squeak they made was out of tune.

She smiled indulgently and let me take music lessons. Even when I gravitated toward the clarinet--hardly the most masculine instrument out there--she shushed my father and let me play. I believe her exact words were "At least he's not playing the flute."

My music collection was full of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. Math, science; nothing held much interest for me other than playing. I didn't play soccer, I spent hours practicing. I auditioned for Regionals, All-State--I made All-Eastern my senior year of high school and nothing ever felt so sweet as when we took that final bow on stage.

It wasn't until I started applying to music schools rather than "regular" college that they realized this wasn't just a slightly-obsessive hobby. This was what I wanted to do with my life. I got into Oberlin, which they considered acceptable; it, at least, had a good academic program. I think they'd have supported me, even if they didn't approve of my choice of career.

At least, until I came out to them. That was too much for them--not just having a musician for a son, but a gay one--no. They weren't willing to accept that. So I turned my back on where I'd come from and focused on where I was going, trusting in my own talent and ambition to keep me afloat.

I made it through undergrad and got accepted to the Manhattan School of Music for my master's. I supported myself by playing as many gigs as I could, anything to earn rent money. I was fortunate enough to get scholarships that covered my tuition, or mostly; the rest was on me. I worked hard, and I survived, and I shared a tiny apartment with three other students. We used to block off bathroom time for practice because of the acoustics--and because it was the only way we could get any privacy to do so. It was amusingly common for whoever _wasn't_ practicing to run across the hall to use someone else's bathroom. Practicing was sacrosanct; everything else took a back seat.

I had a cheap car and became intimately familiar with 80, the Jersey Turnpike and the Parkway, 95, 84, 91...all the highways from Boston to D.C. I got used to cheap hotels, driving at four a.m., functioning on three hours of sleep, where to get coffee and where _not_ to stop. Sometimes I spent more on gas than I made on a gig, but it was experience I needed.

Once I graduated, I moved from my tiny apartment with three roommates to an only-slightly less tiny apartment with one. I still had gigs up and down the Mid-Atlantic, as did my roommate, and we got by. And then in December, I had an audition for the Baltimore Symphony.

Suddenly I could afford a small place of my own, and I was staying put more often than not. I was invited to audition for a wind quintet as well, and we traveled a bit in the off-season, but I was beginning to put down roots, even if I lived closer to D.C. than Baltimore. I made friends in the symphony and of my fellow quintet members, and I found some of the decent clubs in the area.

Christian, the quintet's flautist and one of the most flamboyantly gay men I've ever met, took a liking to me. We weren't lovers; I had no real interest in dating someone who made Elton John look tame, but he was a friend, and a good bitching partner. He invited me to a party one night--his yoga instructor was having a little gathering and had told him to come and bring friends. I think my initial reaction was 'Well, of _course_ he does yoga.' Cute flexible men--why not?

It was at the party that I met Stephen. In a sea of color and laughter and chatter, he was quiet, polite but restrained, dressed in black and silver. His hair was down, spilling over his shoulders--it was the first thing I noticed about him, truth be told.

His ass was the second.

I made my way to him and we talked and found a quiet corner and shared a bowl of cashews and the last two cans of Coke. By the time the party broke up I was seriously infatuated; all he had to do was give me that quiet, almost shy smile, and I was sunk.

We dated for about two months. Somewhere after the first month we realized it wasn't working, but neither of us wanted to say anything for fear of hurting the other. Stephen--well, he wanted something he didn't want to admit, and I couldn't give him what he wanted. I didn't want to.

So we broke up in the middle of sex, got dressed, went and had really good Chinese, and he's now the closest friend I've got.

Stephen's a cello, I think. That deep, mellow timbre, capable of blending into the background or taking center stage with its powerful voice--it needs a very talented person to play it, to bring out all its nuances and shades, and if that's not Stephen I don't know what is. It's beautiful, a lovely instrument, and I think there's only one person in the world who can play him with the skill he deserves.

That, of course, is Joshua. I don't always like the man, I don't always like his relationship with Stephen and what it does to them both, but I'd have to be a complete idiot--and blind--not to see how good they are for each other. I've never met anyone capable of handling Stephen and all his moods before Joshua; I sure as hell wasn't. So while I don't always like the way Joshua treats him, I have to admit, albeit grudgingly, that Stephen needs him...and he needs Stephen. They're eerily matched, those two. They're not two sides of a coin, they're like two halves of a whole, as if they're incomplete without the other.

But where Stephen tends to fade into the background sometimes, Joshua almost never does. He's a violin, the concertmaster. He carries the melody, he stands out, and he only releases your attention when he wants to. He weaves his song around Stephen's lower harmony, drawing him out, until the dance between them becomes the only thing you hear.

Beautiful, and intense, and not necessarily something I want for myself.

I went out of town on a two-week touring gig with my quintet and returned to discover Stephen's downstairs neighbor--a creepy man I'd met twice--had been killed, he'd apparently been stalking Stephen for months, and there had been suspicion cast on Joshua and then Stephen as to the killing.

Oh, and one of the investigators on the case and the forensics specialist had somehow become friends with Stephen and the investigator was a natural sub who had no idea about anything and maybe wanted to learn.

Only Stephen, i thought, shaking my head. Only him.

In any event, it certainly didn't hurt that he was beautiful and in shape. If there was one thing I'd picked up about myself over the years, it was an appreciation for the male form.

So attractive, intelligent, interested in learning...and single, from what Stephen told me. Was it any wonder I went for him?

Tony was a guitar; most people saw him and didn't look past his surface, but he had depths that I wanted to explore, things I wanted to show him about himself.

Any fool can play a chord or two on a guitar and call it a song. It takes skill to truly _play_ , to turn a guitar from more than a rock band staple into a beautiful, classical instrument. I looked at Tony and saw that while I might not have the ability to play him that eloquently, I could at least give him more than his bevy of casual lovers.

Joshua was right. Tony was a natural. He responded to me instinctively, following my lead as if he'd been born to it. Not even Stephen had been like this--but Stephen doesn't give his trust, or his submission, easily. He's got too many walls for that.

Tony, on the other hand...Tony didn't know enough to have walls. Not against this. And maybe it was selfish of me, but I wanted to hear him play. I wanted a song from him, not just a few chords and some uninspired picking. So I didn't teach him to develop walls. I didn't teach him how to resist me; I taught him how to give in to me.

It was exactly like playing an instrument, too. Tony was so eager, so desperate to have this contact that he literally bent over backwards for me. Just the lightest touch of my fingers and I heard him play, a low note here, higher there, the arpeggio of arousal and the crescendo of climax. Melodramatic, maybe, but true nevertheless.

I hear my own song when I'm with Tony, now. The sultry, smooth sound of my clarinet, seductive and bold by turns, braided into the silvery music of his guitar. I'm teaching him my melody, and he's answering with his own harmony. Even now, even after only a few weeks I can hear the shading in it, the depth that wasn't there when we met.

A natural, Joshua called him. Stephen just cautioned me to be careful, but I'm not sure whether he was concerned for me or Tony. It'd be so easy to fall in love with him, I think. So easy to let my melody twine around his. He's beautiful, he's bright, he's funny, and the more I play him the more I want to hear his song.

I don't know if I want to fall in love. I don't know if I want that much intensity. I _know_ I don't want what Stephen has; that's just not in me. No matter how much he trusts me and loves me as his friend, I'll never hear the true beauty of his song. Only Joshua will. Only Joshua will ever hear the whole of it, the light and the darkness Stephen hides from everyone else. I know it's there; I don't know what it sounds like. I don't want to.

I want something different. I want music that I can share, that belongs to me and my lover but can be heard by those around us. I want a connection that doesn't consume me, one that leaves me whole at the end of it. My own instrument, my own sound in the whole of the piece.

I don't know what Tony wants. I don't know if he wants to disappear within a greater orchestral sound or if he wants to maintain his independence. I don't even know if he wants a permanent lover or not. But I'm learning how to play him, and as my skill increases and I can hear more of his shading, I'm learning more about who he is and what he wants.

I'm not going to fall in love with him just yet. I could. But I'm not going to. For now, I'll play for him, and I'll let him hear my song as it blends with his own. And I'll see.

Or is it hear?


End file.
